Wednesday, March 31, 2010

First up is Spring Fling. This is a peachy cream that almost blends with your skin colour, but then you look at it again and it looks like it clashes with your skin. This is two coats, which applied beautifully and dried fast.

Watermelon - this colour has received some awesome raves. I like it, its a pinky salmon colour to me. This was two coats and I can just see a nail line. Applied great like the other Ulta3s.

Crazy - is a bright orange with a gold shimmer. Very cool, I like it a lot. This was three coats, and there is still and slight nail line.

I actually published the post and forgot to include 'Tahiti'- which is a neon pinky orange. This was three coats, with one Seche Vite top coat because like all neon colours it dries matte.

I have a big batch of Ulta3 pinks that I have swatched and am writing up, so stay tuned to see.

In this batch of swatches, I have chosen my gold/bronze/metallic Ulta3 colours.

Let me start by saying I love gold polishes. I just can't get enough of them. In fact at least 1/3 of my polish collection would be gold toned polishes. And the one polish that started my crazy obsession with nail polish in the last six months - "Palladium" by Jessica, is the most amazing gold polish ever!!

First up, Antique copper - Beautiful - I think my favourite of the bunch. And there are some great polishes here. And remember they are only AUS$2. AWESOME!! Anyway, this polish is a light metallic gold. It's a cooler shade of gold than precious and it has tiny flecks of particle glitter which makes it look so blingy. This was three coats.

Earth - This was three coats and it had a streaky finish. It's a purply brown shimmer. I had a bit of trouble applying this one cleanly, but that might just be a reflection of my painting skills, not the polish.

Envy - Beautiful. A metallic pinky mauve silver foil. Very shiny with full coverage in two coats.

Jazzle - An interesting polish. I'd describe it as a peachy gold with blue, green and gold shimmer. This is three coats, and it was still quite transparent. I think this polish would be great layered. So I tried it.

Jazzle over black - up close you can really see the blue and green shimmer to this. I might just have to try make a frankenpolish out of some of this as I think it could be really great.

Neutral - Almost a flat brown colour, but catch it at the right angle and you see a lovely subtle gold shimmer. Applied very smoothly and this was two coats.

Precious - BLING - This one is right up my ally. A very shiny warm gold foil finish. The foil finish looks to be made up of tiny flecks of particle glitter. But the application is totally smooth. This gold version of Envy and Snazzle.

Snazzle - BLING again - just like the gold above, this is a silver foil finish. It's very similar to my Revlon Diamonds are Forever. I believe it would also be similar to the Orly Foil FX range.

Sunkissed - A warm shimmery bronze. It showed a few streaks on application, but they almost all disappeared on drying. This is three coats.

Tropez - This is a pearly shimmer finish. It's a warm netural bronze colour. A little streaky, even after drying. This was two coats.

All in all, I love the range on bronze colours and the foil finish polishes from Ulta3 are just fantastic for the price. What I want to see from Ulta3 now would be some good glitter polishes (their current ones aren't great) and some holographic polishes! Wouldn't that be awesome!!

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

I went a little crazy on the weekend doing new swatches of my Ulta3 collection, which is now up to 59 polishes.

Here are the three reds I have.

English rose - is a great bright red with a slight red and gold shimmer. The first coat on this one looks very pink, so you have to make the effort and do three coats. But it's totally worth the effort. I have actually made an awesome frankenpolish out of this, which I will show to you soon.

Brandy wine - is a very pretty maroon with a pinky red shimmer. It applied very nicely. This was two coats.

Finally Fire Truck. This is one of the speed dry range. Which to me didn't really dry any quicker than the other Ulta3 polishes - they all dry super quick. This one was a rich strong bright red. This was two coats.

None of these had a top coat, and they were all a lovely shiny finish.

Saturday, March 27, 2010

I only have six of the eleven polishes, and I think I will gradually have to get them all. These polishes are really awesome. My favourite collection in my whole stash. I really, really love them. Really!

'It's My Turn' is a gold holographic. I love gold polish and this is no exception. I think this was three coats.

'He's going in circles' is a light pastel green holo. And I just had to bling it up more by adding green stars. The stars just didn't really stay on, they kept catching on everything. I don't know how people manage to do anything when they wear all sorts of embellishments on their nails. This was three coats and it was very sheer.

'Visit me in prism' is almost a silver holo, but it has a slight pinky mauve tone to it. It's beautiful. Again three coats.

'Sexagon' is a pure silver holo. It was a little cloudy for this picture, so you can't see the holo effect as much as you can in the other pics, but believe me, it's just as holo.

'Spin me round' is a tan coloured holo. Really beautiful again. I'd say it's a work appropriate holo, but then again I wear just about anything to work!

Finally, my favourite of them all, 'Lets do it in 3D'. This is amazing polish. It just yells WOW at you. It's a charcoal base holo with so much holo speckles that it's, well, just amazing.

All these polishes are super fast to dry, which is good, because they all needed at least three coats. The holo particles in these are much chunkier than the ones in the OMG collection, but they still apply absolutely smooth on the nail. They also lasted a bit better on my nails than the OMG ones, but still not very long. But when the polish is this spectacular, it just doesn't matter.

Friday, March 26, 2010

Inspired by the Daily Nail's camo design I thought I would try my hand at it. I didn't have any of the colours she used, so I went through my stash to see what I could do.

The brown is Ulta3 chocolate cake and the two greens are ones that I frankened up based on Ulta3 Jelly. I used a french nude as the base - can't remember the brand. Did two coats of Essie Matte about you for the top coat.

I loved this polish, and wore it to work when I was in a Prince2 training course. My nails kept distracting me from all the principles, themes and processes.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

This is another Konad design I did a couple of months ago. It was the first one I did using real Konad special polish. I thought it probably didn't matter about using the special polishes. But it really does. I've only got black and white at the moment, but hope to build on that soon.

This design was NYC (same as Ulta3) Citrus as the base, then konad plate m70 for the splatters. It looked really good. But my only problem was with a top coat. I don't have the konad special top coats, and really don't think I will ever get them. I tried a top coat on my pinky, and the black all smeared. So I didn't bother with top coat on the other fingers. I have since worked out how to apply Seche Vite top coat to konad without this problem, but thats another post.

I've also read that you should put on a coat of top coat before you stamp with konad. That way if you stuff up, you can usually remove the konad design without having to take off the entire base. I will have to try this.

Here are the stamping steps.

Konad plate 70, which has four full nail designs and one tip design. I then painted the plate with Konad special black polish and used the konad scraper. Then roll the stamp onto the plate, then roll it onto your nail.

Can there be any better combination that holographic nail polish and nail art stamping. I don't think so.

Here we have OPI DS Original stamped with Konad special polish in black.

This design uses image plate m73, which has four full nail designs and a heart tip design. I then painted the plate with Konad special black polish and used the konad scraper. Then roll the stamp onto the plate, then roll it onto your nail.

I love the idea of this, its just that I'm a unco at applying it. No matter how hard I try I can't get the damn konad stamp lined up right on my finger. I think I just need more practice.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

I actually got this idea from someone else's blog. Sorry it's a while ago now and I can't remember who to give the credit to.

Its one of my first Konad efforts and I think it shows. I also didn't clean my polish on the cuticles very well. This is Revlon Diamonds are Forever for the base then Konad special white polish with m60 stamp. This Revlon polish is really beautiful and I pinched it off my mum (thanks mum!). Its a very sparkly foil finish silver polish.

This Konadicure was before I got Seche Vite so I just used a Revlon top speed top coat, which did smear the white polish. Although luckily with the silver beneath its not that noticeable.

The effect looked very pretty, almost matrimonial. I could see a bride wearing it with a white dress with sparkles.

I don't think there ever could be enough holographic polish in the world. I love the stuff. I was telling a guy at work about my holographic polishes and he was like "cool, you mean like Princess Leia popping up from the ends of your finger tips". I thought that was very funny. But seriously, sometimes I get so memorised by holographic polishes that I just keep staring at them like they are talking to me.

Anyway, being down under we don't get to see the fabulous holos available overseas. Canberra is worse than the other major cities in finding holo polishes too. I think the only one I have seen in store is OPI Coronation.

I decided to spend up big and bought the entire China Glaze OMG collection on eBay. Ahhh. But given that we would be charged about $15 per bottle for regular china glaze, I was happy with the price I paid.

I was so excited when they arrived that I couldn't pick just one colour to wear, so I put on ten.

This swatch from left to right shows: OMG, TTYL, TMI, BFF and QT on the thumb.

This swatch from left to right shows: IDK, 2NITE, DV8, L8R G8R and LOL on the thumb.

I prefer the 'cool' hand on me - the purples, blues and greens. But they are all amazing holo polishes that are 100% smooth with a beautiful linear holographic effect.

I found these polishes just didn't last for me. Application was great, two coats and they were all opaque. Very thin and super fast dry time but, by the second day I had so many chips and large chunks peeling off that I had to take it off.

Monday, March 22, 2010

This effort, whilst not my first, was one of my first konad designs. Actually I think it was my second one, but is was certainly the first one I took a photo of. Konad is pretty cool (despite the name - but more on that later).

The base for this was Max Factor Nailfinity in 'Angel nails'. A very pretty pale pinky mauve foil finish polish.

I then stamped over it using plate m63 with the brightest red polish I had. But because it's not a konad special polish the colour really thins out on the stamp. That's why the stamp looks pink.

The final effect was still pretty, and I got lots of comments about my nails. I really like this stamp on plate m63, I've since used it quite a few times.

This was two coats Angel nails then stamped. Revlon speed dry top coat (done before I had my Seche Vite).

Sunday, March 21, 2010

My favourite aussie nail polish brand has to be Ulta3. They're easy to find (your local chemist will usually stock them), they have a great range of colours and they are cheap, only $2. Unlike you US gals, we don't get many cheap polishes. I only know of Ulta3 that is $2. I have bought some Totally Beautiful Nail for $2.50 and Satin for $2.50, but I have never seen a big range of colours for them.

The problem with Ulta3 polishes is that it's almost impossible to find out what colours look like online. That's why I'm swatching my Ulta3's.

First up is 'Burgundy', which is a deep burgundy jelly. This was two coats, but the streakiness in the sun shows me I should have done three. Had a glossy finish, the swatch has no top coat.

Next is 'spring shower' which is a pretty pale blue. It dried quickly and took two coats to be opaque. Had a shiny finish, the swatch has no top coat.

'Spring blossom' is a lemon cream. Like other Ulta3's it dried quickly. I had some trouble with application with this one, where I would get bald spots when applying other coats, but it all smoothed out in the end. This is three coats, and it needed it. No top coat.

'Citrus' actually say's nyc brand, but its the same as the Ulta 3 and can be found in the same Ulta 3 bins at the chemist. This is a fluro yellow, or neon. Like most neons, it dries matte, so this swatch has one coat of Seche Vite. I don't own any other brand yellow neon to compare it to, although I would love to try Essie Funky Limelight, but to me this was pretty bright.

'Honolulu' is another yellow cream. This was three coats and you can still see visible nail line (which I hate). This colour was weird, I think it made me look ill. It also seemed to dry a little slower than other Ulta3s.

'Wild berry' doesn't seem berry to me at all. It's more of a dark grey with a slight red tinge. It had a shiny finish and was very quick to dry. This was two coats, no top coat.

'Spring break' is a really bright purple jelly. In sunlight it is very bright, indoors it's much darker. It dries matte. This was two coats with one Seche Vite top. It probably needs three coats so it doesn't look streaky in sunlight.

'Hot spring' is a nice deep bright pink. It was opaque in one coat, but I did two. Dried glossy, so this has no top coat.

'Hollywood' is a bright metallic blue. One of my favourites in the range. This was two coats and it wasn't streaky or anything. Dried glossy, so no top coat here.

'Fruit tingle' is another one that looks great on. Its almost a fluro hot pink. The first coat drys matte, but the other coats were glossy. No top coat on swatch. This was three coats to get opaque. Really liked this, even though I don't normally wear pinks.

'Natural spring' is a very pale and neutral pink. Dries glossy so no top coat here. This was three coats, but still a visible nail line.

I did this manicure for Australia Day back in January. My first ever attempt at nail art. It's uneven, chunky, wobbly and poorly finished. I did it free hand using some nail art pens I was given about ten years ago.

Mind you, I did get heaps of comments on my nails, so that made me feel happy.

Of course, it was a few days after Australia Day that I came across the Daily Nail blog, and saw her awesome Australian flags. She posted on 23 Jan. and it wasn't even cause of Aussie day, just a coincidence.

So I had always been into nail polish and had a small box with maybe 30 polishes. After reading these blogs I went shopping. Three months later I have more than 200 and my husband thinks I've gone mad!

Now other ladies in Australia would know, we just don't have access to all the great polishes available in the US and UK. I'm in Canberra, and its almost impossible to get even the big brand names found overseas. I'm talking OPI and China Glaze here. Sure you can get OPI in David Jones but you will have to fork out $20 a bottle. And I haven't found anywhere in Canberra that has much of the China Glaze range, only a few bottles at the nail salons in the malls.

So ebay became my friend and I went a little polish crazy. The local chemists also see me as a regular rummaging through the Ulta3 bins searching for new colours of my favourite el cheapo brand.

So here I will start sharing my swatches. If anyone is out there, I hope you enjoy!